So, you’re reading this great book and thoroughly enjoying it. You’re looking forward to opportunities to pick up the story – and to follow the plot as it continues to unfold. You want to learn how the hero or heroine will deal with more of life’s unexpected confrontations. Then, sadly, you turn that last page and close the back cover – and with it you are at the end of the world the author created for you.
At these times, I often wonder how the writer felt when the last page was written. It must be difficult to spend months or even years immersed in the lives and places that the author creates. A writer must know the day will come when he will have to leave what has become more real to him than almost anything. For that writer, each and every character – especially the one on whom the story was centered – actually
lived.Let’s assume that you are an established and recognized writer of fictional stories. Further, let’s assume that through some quirk of fate, your newest hero is a real human – he is born and lives – because what you created on your keyboard actually came true. How would you respond to this astounding power over life and death? Also, do you care about what will become of the sentient being you have awakened? Will this new self-awareness reach back to you – his creator and possibly his destroyer?
This is the thesis on which the wonderful story of “Stranger than Fiction” is based. The movie stars Will Ferrell as Harold Crick, an IRS agent born from the pen – make that the old-fashioned typewriter – of Kay Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson. Harold is a real man who becomes seriously disturbed when he begins to hear the words of narrator Eiffel in his head as she strikes the letters on her keyboard. He becomes especially upset when he realizes she intends to kill him off, as she does heroes in all of her books.
The credit for the outstanding script of “Stranger than Fiction” belongs to writer Zack Helm. Director Marc Forster succeeds in obtaining just the right performance from Ferrell. He is also to be commended for Thompson’s excellent portrayal of Kay Eiffel…Emma Thompson is nothing less than superb. While this nice little film may not be quite up to Academy award standards, Emma’s character of Kay Eiffel certainly is. So I credit the directing – as well as Emma Thompson herself. In role after role, she is a rare actress who is just amazing.
I loved “Stranger than Fiction” and you probably will, too. I had the same feeling with this film that I get when I turn the last page of a good book. I was sorry to be leaving these fascinating characters behind.
I rate this an “A” on Ellen’s Entertainment Report Card.
****
Here's Sony Pictures' very inventive web site:
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/strangerthanfiction/ MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language, and nudity.
Additional actors: Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah
1 hour, 14 minutes; in color.
Genre(s): comedy, drama, fantasy, romance.
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